


to me, you are

by IuvenesCor



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (the widojest here is the canonically one-sided kind), (with a lil background angst cos it’s my m.o.), Character Development, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Singing, Widogast’s Nascent Nein-Sided Tower, also also Zemnian aka google german, also books, inspired by a youtube comment chain, lowkey Widojest, set shortly after ep 114
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:46:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27389689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IuvenesCor/pseuds/IuvenesCor
Summary: The changes in Caleb are more than giving up his amulet, than facing Icky-thong with bravery and restraint, than playing with impulse in his occasional beast forms and even sometimes in his own human flesh. Sometimes it’s in the more subtle, more delicate things. Fine details, like chiaroscuro in a painting. Hidden aspects, like crystals in a geode.Things like a song, apparently.(or, Caleb has a hidden talent, and Jester refuses that whole “hidden” part)
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 14
Kudos: 92





	to me, you are

**Author's Note:**

> So quick explanation: someone noted polymorphed!Caleb’s immediate “flirting” with the cetus in Episode 113 as bard-like behavior, which led to the comment:
> 
> _Caleb: I wanna be a bard!_  
>  _Trent: Haha, no._
> 
> And while I don’t think Caleb would have truly pursued being a bard... it doesn’t hurt to think that maybe, just maybe, he’s got a tiny hidden talent.

They call it “coming out of one’s shell.” Jester thinks that’s a perfectly good metaphor; she’s watched a good many crustaceans over the years, whether smuggled off the beach as a temporary pet or brought in to the Chateau’s kitchen before becoming an entry on the evening’s menu. She knows the kind of calm and security it takes for a creature to peek out from their suit of armor. She knows for all that hiding is necessary, a body’s got to come out and live some day, no matter how short that life might be.

She’s seen so many people in so little time— compared to the so few people she saw in so much time before leaving Nicodranas— poke their heads out from their shells and bare a little flesh, a little of their inner being, with the right atmosphere. For some, it’s injustice provoking rage. For others, it’s reunion ushering in joy. You never know what you’ll see from whom, and when.

Of everyone, she’s enjoyed seeing the emergence of her found family best of all. After all, she’s well invested in them by this point. She could spend years looking back through her sketchbook, tracing with her eyes the drawings of months since past and remembering each emotion, each deceptively clear memory that was captured in her hands and poured through the implements of her trade. She can remember who the Nein have tried to be, who they have grown into, and who has always been deep at the heart of them all.

Lately, there’s been a lot of emergence, a lot of change. Yasha might be the most notable example, with her gorgeous new wings and her _totally amazing dramatic wonderful poetic confession!_ about Beau. Meanwhile, Jester’s pretty sure Caleb takes a close second. The more she thinks about it, the more she notices the headway he’s making.

(It was hard, at first, seeing Caleb as much more than the grumpy, stinky slip of a human he appeared to be. Maybe going out into the world on her own for the first time was a little overwhelming and tempered her insight; maybe she was just too petty to accept any wet blanket personalities during her journey whilst she was utterly turned around and homesick and nervous and not entirely sure what to do and _entirely_ sure she would never think about nor admit to the fact that she was anything less than thrilled with her life choices. Giving herself the benefit of the doubt, it must have been the former. 

But through time and trials, she became convinced that Caleb had potential. That he was someone, someone other than what he tried to be, someone beyond the mire and the misery. That he had room to grow, to heal— that there were wonderful secrets to be found, not just the scars of painful truths.)

Caleb has been creeping out of his shell in little ways, big ways, invisible and blatant ways ever since the tavern in Trostenwald. (Although... she supposes it’s really Bren creeping out of a Caleb-shaped shell, isn’t it?) But recently, since a time she can’t pin down, his emergence has taken on many forms at once.

There have been some big moments lately, but the changes in Caleb are more than giving up his amulet, than facing Icky-thong with bravery and restraint, than playing with impulse in his occasional beast forms and even sometimes in his own human skin. Sometimes it’s in the more subtle, more delicate things. Fine details, like chiaroscuro in a painting. Hidden aspects, like crystals in a geode.

Things like a song, apparently.

Music and the Nein tends to have some very particular associations— Yasha’s harp, Caduceus’ stint with his not-so-musical bone flute, and even Jester’s own prowess with the ivories— and Caleb typically isn’t included in any of them, at least not as a contributor. She does remember a night of waltzing and a good dose of liquid honesty in Caleb, wherein his thoroughly drunk self seemed to turn half his words into singsong. There is also, of course, that occasionally lyrical bent to his tone when he’s nervous. But those have been moments when his comfort is either forced or nonexistent, and Jester realizes that she has never actually heard Caleb sing for real.

There are very few moments so private that the one and only Jester Lavorre, favorite of the Traveler and cherished daughter of the Ruby, would feel embarrassed to intrude upon. She could probably count the instances on one hand. And yet, for some utterly bizarre reason, this moment makes her feel like an anachronism in the room.

The salon is an already fantastical place in an already fantastical Tower. Caleb may be the one in their party notorious for his love of paper and ink, but Jester sees a wonderland in this vast space of literature. There’s a good chance that the books in his memory may not be the kinds of books she enjoys— save the periodic porno and the unfortunately Zemnian-language fairytales— but the smell of paper and leather and the kaleidoscope of spines lining the room still inspires joy. 

With any luck, for all the many tomes in the room, she hopes there just might be one that’s empty. She knows that physical objects from the normal world can’t remain in the Tower. But she’s been playing with the idea of sketching or painting something that could last in this safe space, and something about having an art book that’s her very own, nestled amongst all of Caleb’s Very Serious and Educated books about magic and history, feels like exactly the kind of concentrated project she needs to keep her mind off... things. Particularly, _newly discovered to be not dead and also is now super murdery_ kinds of things.

Caleb is in the salon, as she expects. He floats with his back to her, situated between the top and bottom of the second level and doing... _something_ , something that almost looks like taking inventory. 

Jester herself is stuck between two metaphysical platforms as she descends gently from the floor above. On one hand, habit wants to holler his name from across the room, calling all attention to her; on the other, life’s been an emotional tug of war lately, and there’s something easier in softness and silence. The pause, the hesitance to make a sound as she drifts away from the iris and down toward the middle layer of the salon gives her ears time enough to catch onto a thread of sound coming from the direction of her wizard friend. Sound that, as she strains to discern it, seems to hold a distracted, clunky rhythm and a surprisingly fluid pitch.

“Oh.”

The little word leaves her lips of its own accord, and she holds her breath sharply with regret. However, Caleb seems not to have noticed her intrigued uttering, pointing at certain tomes and nodding at others, making his way up inch by inch even as Jester floats down just as incrementally. Her whole purpose in coming here was to disturb whatever he was doing and weasel a blank book out of him, but now she feels sort of awful at the thought. Well, almost awful. _Slightly_ so. And at the very least, she could go about her business and not embarrass Caleb, but as soon as she gets within a generous arm’s length of him, she finds herself creating her own singsong to the words:

“Caaaaleb, are you singing?”

The wizard barely startles, all sounds ceasing; he flinches slightly if anything, but it’s the sort of response that makes her think he had noticed her presence after all and was simply startled by her voice and the closeness of it. He seems a bit lost in the books, too, and she knows how that can dull his reactions.

“Oh,” he says, turning in the open air to face her. “You surprised me, Jester. You were saying?”

“Welllllll,” she intones, and in the time used to elongate the word, her intentions switch tracks. She’s intruded on a private moment, she knows it, and she won’t embarrass him (...yet.) “I was looking for you because I want to ask a question about books. A particular kind of book, actually.”

His blue eyes twinkle at the prospect, but his lips twitch neutrally, as if holding back excitement. “Oh? Well, I would be happy to help. What is your question?”

She floats in line with him, gaze running over the rows of books before them. “Does the Tower have any empty books?”

“Empty books?” he echoes, tilting his head. “No, I can’t say it does. They are mostly filled with things I have read— some of them repeats. But none empty, no.” With a closer glance at her expression, he asks, “Why, did you need one?”

“I don’t _need_ it. But I was just wondering— do you think there could be one, and if there was, and somebody wrote something— or, say, maybe drew something— inside, would it stick around?”

A low hum of thought leaves Caleb’s chest, and her curiosity piques again at the melodic humming she’d interrupted. “Well... I don’t know. I suppose, if I saw it, I could always recreate it. The Tower, these books, particularly— it’s really all just copies from my head, mostly. Some embellishments here and there.” He considers her again. “Are you looking to become an author, Miss Lavorre? Or an illustrator, perhaps.”

“Oh, it’s nothing that serious, really. I just thought, if all the books in here are big stuffy textbooks or written in Zemnian,” she groans, “then maybe there should be something to read that, y’know, everybody can enjoy.” 

_Oops._ She didn’t mean to imply that Caleb completely missed the mark on his literary decor; he’s done so many incredible, thoughtful things in this Tower (another sign of emergence, one he’s been good at for some time), it seems ungrateful to criticize anything. But it’s easier to give this excuse than to go deep into the concept of _I need anything to think about other than these past two weeks._

Before she can talk back her comment, Caleb answers, “But you have the porn books, _ja?_ ” with the driest wryness across his lips.

“Well, think of Caduceus.”

“Ah, yes, not his cup of tea.”

“Right, right. But, you know... even just for me, I thought it might be fun to have a personalized keepsake in the Tower.”

Caleb smiles softly. “Next time, before I make the Tower, you remind me.” He taps his temple with two fingers. “And I will leave one extra book open for you.”

“Thank you, Caleb,” she grins, performing a mid-air curtsy. 

“And I will read _Der Katzenprinz_ to you as well, yes? We still can make time for that, if you wish.”

She rolls her eyes, “Well, duh. I’m in suspense now because I can’t read it and I want to know what it is!” 

He purses his lips in that agreeable way and nods. “Next time. Was there... anything else you needed?”

“Oh, no, no. Just wondering about the book, is all. You can get right back to whatever you were doing.”

“Ah. Danke.” He nods again, and turns his attention back to the books.

She waits, floating alongside. A moment passes, and he throws her a sidelong glance, yet returns to his browsing. As he rises slightly, she rises as well, no more than two feet behind. He stops, turns, and stares.

“Are you very sure there wasn’t something else on your mind?” he asks, brow furrowed.

“Oh no,” she says quickly, “just watching you.”

Nervous laughter ekes out from him. “Well, I confess that I’m not much of an entertainment.”

She makes a face, shrugging her shoulders and drawling her words innocently. “Oh, welllllll, I don’t know, you could always just— start singing again. That would be totally entertaining.”

He drifts back slightly, confusion overtaking the rest of his expression. “Singing?”

“Yeah, like you were when I came in.”

“Was I?” Jester would say he was deflecting, but she gathers from his face that he genuinely hadn’t noticed. “Maybe I was. But that is nothing,” he dismisses with a wave of a hand and a faint brush of crimson on his whitish cheeks. “It wouldn’t be very good entertainment either.”

That was one hundred percent pure deflection. That was Caleb hiding in his shell. And _that_ was not going to cut it.

She glides up until their eyes are level with one another, arms akimbo. “Caleb, music is _very_ good entertainment. I should know.” Being the daughter of a famous vocally-endowed courtesan meant Jester was incredibly well equipped with an appreciation for such things. 

“Certainly,” he concedes without pause. “But it is not my thing.”

 _More deflection._ She squints at him. “Do you like it?”

“Come again?”

“Do you like singing?”

He frowns. “I am not well trained in it.”

“But do you _like_ it, Caleb?” she presses like an interrogator. 

A few muscles in his back and shoulders give way in a slight, exasperated slouch. “As much as anyone, I suppose.”

She floats the equivalent of one deliberate step forward, all sense of decorum and privacy left behind in the pursuit of art. “I want you to sing for me.”

His jaw clenches, and for half a second she realizes she might have hit a sore spot. But whatever convoluted flash of irritation or discomfort or grief mars his face evaporates quickly. “I... I don’t mean to disappoint, Jester, but that’s a hard thing to ask. Someone like you, or your mother, or maybe Yasha, you can perform on a dime, but I...”

An ache of embarrassment on Caleb’s behalf fills the space around her heart. She wishes she knew how to ask for what she wants without causing discomfort, but that has always seemed to be one of her natural traits: catching people off guard, in vulnerability. He needs this, though, an impromptu moment to _be._ She sees the glimmer of life’s greatest firelight in his eyes when he follows his whims; it’s simply a matter of her being selfish, and wanting to see that light for herself.

She takes his hands in hers, and they are delightfully warm. “I don’t want to put you on the spot, so you really don’t have to if you don’t want to. Buuuuut... instead of singing like a performance, you could make it a lesson?”

“A lesson?” He smiles his usual _oh gods how do I get out of this_ smile. “I somehow doubt I can teach you anything about singing that you likely don’t already know.” 

“A Zemnian lesson,” she clarifies. “I’m sure there’s some songs you know that aren’t in Common, right?”

Softly, he laughs, pulling his hands back. “You are making a good many assumptions about me and music.”

“And am I right?” she says, fluttering her eyelashes dramatically. 

He stares at her in silence, a toneless huff of amusement breaking the pause. “I am not a singer,” he reiterates. “And it has been a very long time since I have even thought to sing, let alone do it _for_ anyone.” His mouth wags slightly, forming soundless vowels of hesitation. She knows he will deflect again, write up another raincheck, ask for a reminder next time— and then next time, and next time, and probably never. And yet, the next words out of his mouth after such a long lead-up are, “Just a simple one. A short one.” 

Success stuns her at first, but in time she claps her hands in delight, watching with rapt attention as he suddenly drifts off to the third layer and murmurs, the iris above that she had left open closing at his command. As he descends once more, he says, “Erm, this one... it’s not modern Zemnian. It’s a dialectal variant, not commonly spoken today.” He ducks his head. “It is a folk song, but Astrid and Eadwulf and I, we used to sing it more like a drinking song. My... mother had taught it to me, first.”

The hush of the room permeates her soul. “I’m very excited to hear it,” she tells him softly.

“Hm.” He snaps his fingers, and as the crack of the motion echoes through the salon, one of the cat servants appears from a gap between two very large tomes on the wall. “Smudge. You bring a friend and a fiddle, _ja?_ ” The cat responds with a chittering meow, turning tail; Caleb meanwhile holds up a hand— “Stay here,” he instructs Jester— and disappears behind the second layer’s platform. He and the summoned cats return at the same time, the cats situated on the nearest table with a fiddle and bow at the ready, and Caleb with a book that reads _Primer to Zemnian_ in Common and, presumably, Zemnian on the cover. “ _‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schön,’_ my good boys.”

He seems to compose himself— wags a finger at her, and says, “You are lucky that I like you, Jester Lavorre”— and composes himself once more.

This isn’t impulse. Impulse was humming when the room was empty; this is a forced performance, lesson or not, and the discomfort shows. But she’s ready for it. She’s ready for anything.

He hums a note, shakes his head. Hums another and clears his throat. Exhales. Inhales deeply. Waves a hand at the cats, signaling them to play.

Sings.

There’s no one way to describe Caleb’s voice. It travels, goes through its own journey as the melody leaves his body. The first line almost sounds like metered speaking more than song. The second, his last word falls sour. The third, his pitch falters one, maybe two  
times, the right notes catching in his throat. But all throughout, he sings with surprising purpose— soft, but singing each word with specific enunciation and following the feline fiddlers’ rhythm without fail.

Many performers she’s seen sing more for volume and dramatics, or else with dulcet tones like velvet ribbons to elicit emotion and eros, taking pride in the strength and stability of their voices. Caleb’s singing is quite the opposite, unobtrusive and wispy like a gentle forest breeze, with no show or grandeur. As he says, it isn’t trained— her mother has taught her much over the years, and she can just barely pick out the nuances between amateur and studied musicians, whether it be through tone or breath or posture or the sheer focus of the performer— but it is honest. It isn’t wonderful by any technical means, but there is something about his song that causes even the flaws to sound _right._

She knows of the bardic profession. A good handful of magical minstrels had come through the Chateau over the years, looking to study, admire, or even collaborate with the Ruby of the Sea. She knows that they are trained beyond the ordinary, that they have honed their craft and woven their own power into sound, and that their magic is nothing to be dismissed. 

She can’t help but think Caleb would make a lovely bard indeed.

The fiddle music ends with a flourish, and she finds herself blinking back to reality, no longer caught up in her thoughts and admiration. Caleb has been looking at her, but now seeing that she is looking back, lowers his head and absently watches the ground beneath them. 

At once, she whispers a word in tandem with a clap, and her vibrant applause is echoed into the sound of a room’s worth of hands cheering the performance.

“That was _lovely,_ Caleb,” she croons, willing herself closer to him. 

He peers up and rubs the back of his neck. “So much applause is hardly appropriate for what little was just done.”

“Pshh! Stop being so modest. It was really good!” She nods over at the cats. “And your accompaniment was top notch. They deserve all the praise, and maybe a bit of milk on the house.”

“I’ll make sure to put it on my tab,” he jokes weakly. “But yes, they did very well.”

“And so did you.”

“It wasn’t very good.”

“I thought it sounded wonderful!”

“But it wasn’t very good. A lot of mistakes.”

She sighs, the clapping by now faded into nothing. “Well, fine, if you want to be that way. _Technically,_ you were a little flat, blah-blah-blah.” She makes a face, a _please let me be nice to you right now_ face. “But I thought it was very pretty. Thank you, Caleb.”

“ _Ja,_ ” he merely replies, a twitch running through his left eye. “Did you, ehm... did you pick up on any words for this lesson?”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, totally,” she says. “Absolutely. Lots of ‘em.”

“...You were critiquing my singing the whole time, weren’t you?”

It’s not as if she minds being generally transparent, yet it’s a little bit rude of him to call her out so bluntly like that. Then again, he’s not wrong.

“Maaaaaybe.” She exhales, shaking her posture as so to say _but anyways._ “I did hear the title, though. Bee-mir... b-bisto...”

“ _‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schön,’_ ” he corrects patiently.

“Right. _‘Bei Mir Bist Du Schön.’_ ” The Zemnian words are a bit thick on her tongue, but they’ll do. “So what does it mean?”

“Well.” He opens up the book in his hands, peeling through pages with precision accuracy as he drifts to her side and begins to explain. “ _Mir_ means ‘me,’ and _bei mir_ is ‘with me,’ but also could mean ‘to me’ in translation. _Du_ is ‘you’— not _you_ , Jester, but a generic you, whoever is being spoken to. _Bist_ means ‘are.’ _Schön_ is ‘beautiful.’ Together, _Bei Mir Bist Du Schön_ would mean... ‘To me, you are beautiful.’”

Honestly, between the wall of words in the book grabbing her attention and the overall difficulty in listening to _anybody’s_ lecture mode, the only part of the explanation she picks up is the end result. She gasps at the translation, looking from the book to his face. “Caleb, is it a love song?” 

He melts into an awkward smile. “ _Ja_ , it is. It’s been around for an age. I figure that is a topic up your alley.”

“So what does the rest of it say?” she presses, linking an arm with his, peering back at the book. 

“You want me to teach you?”

“Yes, please. I want to learn the music, too.”

He shifts against her weight. “We can do that with the instrumental version, I think. Words, I can do better.”

Words are something she’s familiar with coming from her wizard friend, even if she struggles to understand them and put two languages together. It doesn’t require him to bear any further part of his delicate self outside of the shell of intelligence and reason as he points from one inked word to the next. But that’s okay for now. They’ve started on something new, little by little.

Friendship thrives in the little things.

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, I ripped off a real-world song, but it felt kind of perfect for Caleb? In context, the original Yiddish song was from a theater musical whose title sort of translates to “You could live, but they don’t let you,” and I mean... imagine a bby student Caleb who goes out drinking with his friends and sings a bunch, and even hums now and then absently during studies, and he wants to start exploring more “bardic” magics because it’s fun not because it’s practical, but Icky is all “no your best potential is in transmutation and fire, you just work on that, the Cerberus Assembly ain’t training no bards” and that’s the end of that.
> 
> Also, the original Yiddish song goes:
> 
> “to me you are beautiful  
> to me you have grace  
> to me you are one of a kind  
> to me you are great  
> to me you have “it”  
> to me you are more precious than riches.”
> 
> And like... Caleb would absolutely sing this to an oblivious Jester. You can’t convince me otherwise.
> 
> Anyway! Enough frantic rambling. Thanks for reading! *kisses*


End file.
